1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to providing an improved system of hardware setup in data processing systems and in particular to the ability to reduce the resources and effort required to accomplish such setup. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to the setup of hardware by means of a program operated over a data processing system network.
2. Description of the Related Art
The experience of repeatedly reconfiguring data processing system hardware absorbs the resources of organizations and the time of individuals for a seemingly limitless number of reasons. For instance, if a new peripheral device is added to a previously properly configured data processing system, it is often necessary to carry out a repetition of the hardware setup for pre-existing hardware so that the data processing system can recognize and drive the added device without conflict. The term “device” is a generic name for peripheral equipment (or peripheral devices) such as keyboards, mice, displays, and HDDs (Hard Disk Drives). Further, if the device drivers for an already installed device are upgraded, a hardware setup often needs to be performed to install the upgraded device driver into the data processing system. The device drivers are a program forming a part of the operating system (OS), which manages a device connected to the data processing system.
In the current state of the art, the hardware setup has been carried out in the following three ways.                (1) The data processing system has no hardware setup program of its own, and leaves the hardware setup entirely to the OS. In this case, for the Windows (trademark) OS, the hardware setup is carried out from the control panel.        (2) The data processing system has its own hardware setup program. In this case, the hardware setup program is executed after the hardware is installed into the data processing system.        (3) The hardware setup program of (2) described above also includes the function of (1) described above. As an example of a hardware setup program of this type, consider the ThinkPad Configuration Utility provided for the IBM ThinkPad™, a notebook-sized personal data processing system of International Business Machines Corporation of the U.S. and IBM Japan, Ltd. ThinkPad Configuration Utility is a so-called integrated program, in which all of the hardware setup items are collected into one place without regard to whether they exist on the OS. By simply executing this utility, any hardware setup operation that is available on the data processing system can be performed.        
In case (1) above, the general-purpose nature of the OS precludes it from carrying out setup operations that for hardware that depends on the model of a data processing system. Accordingly, it must be used in combination with a hardware setup program of type (2). Case (3) above suffices to perform the necessary hardware setup operations because it integrates the functions of both the OS and the hardware setup program that is native to the data processing system.
At any rate, the hardware setup operation is carried out by executing the hardware setup program after installing it into the data processing system. There are various ways of installing the hardware setup program into the data processing system. For instance, if the hardware setup program is recorded on a portable recording medium such as a diskette (or floppy disk (FD)) or CD-ROM, the portable recording medium is set in a special drive and the hardware setup program is installed. Further, if the hardware setup program is stored on a server data processing system on a network, the data processing system undergoing the hardware setup operation is connected to the network, and the installation is performed by downloading the hardware setup program from the server data processing system.
The installation of the hardware setup program requires substantial effort. The required effort becomes increasingly significant in companies that have installed a large number of data processing systems of the same model. In the large number of data processing systems of the same model owned by companies, hardware settings often need to be uniform across all systems. In the current state of the art, to perform the hardware setup, the hardware setup program has to be installed for each individual data processing system. Moreover, if the hardware setup program is upgraded, it must be reinstalled on each system. If there are many data processing systems to be set up, the reinstallation requires a great effort.
The conventional hardware setup method is based on the premise that the hardware setup program must be installed into a data processing system. This creates a problem in that the installation requires a great effort if the hardware setup operation is to be performed on many machines.
It would be desirable, therefore, to be able to perform the hardware setup operation without installing the hardware setup program on the machine on which the hardware setup operation is to be performed. It would further be advantageous if the hardware setup operation could be performed from a server residing on a data processing system network.